


Glass Coffin

by FaeryPeopleOfTheFutureDay



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaeryPeopleOfTheFutureDay/pseuds/FaeryPeopleOfTheFutureDay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about a little girl. To be more exact, me as a little girl, a long time ago. At least, that's how it starts. Back when I was smaller and times were simpler, before I discovered the glass coffin and the many other secrets my parents had kept from me. Sometimes I want to be that kid again, curious and innocent. And then I remember how much that kid wanted to be me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meet my nemesis

I guess if I’m going to tell this story, I may as well start from the beginning. The door. In reality, it was just a perfectly normal wooden door in a perfectly normal side hallway of the castle. Except it wasn’t. There was something about that door that made even the toughest of guards afraid to go near it. They wouldn’t even talk about what was inside, just that it was dangerous and I should stay away.

That should have been a warning right there, but my young self saw this as a challenge.

I was the only one who would ever touch the wooden door, and I only did so when I was sure that I was alone.

At first, it was just a poke, the tap of a single pinky on the surface. The strange wonder that it really was just a wooden door. There was no fire or poison or sharp blades. Just wood.

My imaginative mind made a face out of the grains of wood, a face that mocked me, taunting that I will never know what is behind it. I made it my mission to open that door. After all, it was just a perfectly normal wooden door in a perfectly normal side hallway of the castle. Except it wasn’t.


	2. Glitter is not always fun

And then I met him. On a spring day when I was about seven and a half. I had been watching the door. The door that was impossible to open no matter how hard I pushed and pulled. The one that mocked me each time I failed. Yeah, that door.

Anyway, I was staring at the door when I was startled by a high pitched giggle. I remember being terrified and confused.

Terrified because I thought I was alone and I didn’t want to get in trouble for being near the door after being told many times to stay away.

Confused because the noise sounded almost childlike, but there weren’t any other children in the castle. Of course, there were other children, but they lived in the village. They weren’t royal. There were other royal children, but they lived far away, and I only saw them at banquets. I’m getting off topic.

This all happened in less than a second. I hear the noise, I spun around, and my eyes fixed on the man covered in glitter and leather. He was wearing the leather. But the glitter… It covered his body like a second skin. Even his eyes were gold.

I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t breathe. I remember wondering if my nemesis, the door, had reached out an invisible hand and plucked away my breath, leaving me to die slowly.

“Wh-What are you?” I had asked after regaining my breath. My burning eyes still unable to blink, unable to look away from the creature standing before me.

The glittery man placed his right hand on his chest and turned his head to the side as he widened his eyes and mouth in exasperation.

“How rude! He exclaimed once he was done with his dramatic display. “And here I believed that a princess had more manners. I am a who, not a what.”

_“Who_ are you then?” I corrected, silently gloating in my victory of regaining my ability to blink.

He grinned, glad to talk about himself once more.

“Rumpelstiltskin, at you service, Princess Emma.” He said with a bow. I curtsied to him because that was what you’re supposed to do. I may not have been a very good princess, but I knew that much.

“How did you know my name?”

“Let’s just say I have a thing with names.” He spoke with his hands, waving them around as he talked. “But you’re asking all the wrong questions.” He took a step towards me and I took a step back instinctively. “Don’t be shy, princess.”

“Are you a monster?” I had asked him. What a naïve little girl I was.

“Monster?!” I had upset him again. “And here I came to give you a gift.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” I said, remembering my mother’s stories about the gifts of strangers.

“But you shall have it.” He waved his hand and extended it towards me. There was something shiny and metal in it that had not been there before. It was like magic. It was magic. “Go ahead, take it.” Magic wasn’t outlawed in this kingdom, but it wasn’t widely practiced either. Few people possessed the skill. Fewer still could use their gifts responsibly.

I shook my head and tried to walk away.

“Don’t you want to know what’s behind that door?” He called. I stopped dead in my tracks.

Of course I did. But could I trust him?

“This is the key,” he explained and I turned to see him holding what did indeed appear to be a golden key. The key to the door.

Part of me knew this was a trap, but another part of me, like my left hand slowly reaching for it, wanted that key more than anything. I had to choose.

I heard footsteps coming behind me. I glanced behind me for a moment, but when I turned back to the glittery man, he was gone. It was too late.

The footsteps had come from my father’s feet. He had been trying to find me. After the usual inquiries of ‘where have you been?’ and ‘what are you doing here?’ and ‘what have I told you about this door?’ and the even more babying ‘why do we have to stay away from this door?’ and a promise of my own to listen to my parents and never again go near the door, I was finally taken to my riding lessons.


	3. Who really needs sleep anyway?

 You may have heard of the princess and the pea. Some girl who is so high maintenance that she can feel a pea through a bunch of mattresses. This is kind of like that, except it’s the princess and the key. As in, I, the princess, felt something hard underneath my pillow one night and it was a key. _The_ key. _The_ key to _the_ door. The one the glittery man with the long name had offered me before my father showed up. Yeah, that key.

I would like to say that I resisted the temptation. That I called a guard or one of my parents and told them everything. That I kept my promise to not go near the door. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I did. But that’s not what happened.

The halls were empty at night, empty enough that no one noticed a small child sneaking down a dangerous hallway to a dangerous door, all while holding a dangerous torch (there wasn’t anything special about the torch, it was just the fire that made it dangerous) to light the way. The guards on duty must have fallen asleep. I suppose that’s why Rumpelstiltskin gave me the key that particular night. He didn’t want me to get caught.

My heart was beating out of my chest as I inserted the key and turned.

Now, if you have ever wanted something so badly that it’s all you can think about, it’s usually not as good as you think it will be.

Opening that door was like touching the wood for the first time.

I had expected all sorts of terrors and wonders, but it was just a room. Just as the door had been just a door. There were no monsters or portals or evil witches. It was quite disappointing.

But interesting none the less.

I opened the door just enough for me to slip inside (and slip out if I had to make a quick escape). It was a dusty room and I remember holding my hand over my mouth to prevent me from coughing. I didn’t want to make any noise to alert the attention of the guards, or worse. Just because I didn’t see any monsters didn’t mean that they couldn’t hear me. The entire castle must be afraid of this room for some reason.

I set the torch in a holder inside the room and looked around. I found a fancy glove, a crystal ball, a broken clock, and a bunch of other stuff.

Then I saw it, on the far side of the room, reflecting the moonlight of the small window. A large container with a fancy design. I could see something through the glass of the container and I moved closer for a better look. Now I know that that container was a coffin, and I really shouldn’t have been that surprised and terrified to see it filled with a dead body.

At the time, it was quite shocking. Enough so that I scrambled backwards into a table, nearly knocking the crystal ball onto the floor. I caught it though, and then I gently set it down and bolted out of the room, forgetting the torch inside but remembering to lock the door. I stumbled through the darkness back to my room.

The guards always did wonder what happened to that torch.


	4. Keeping Secrets

I couldn’t ask my parents why they had a dead body kept away in a forbidden room without admitting that I had entered said forbidden room. And I couldn’t explain how I had been able to get in without mentioning the glittery man.

And as time went on, I acquired many secrets that I can never tell anyone. It became a secret part of my life, the part containing the glass coffin. Maybe that’s why I am writing this to you, reader. I have kept these secrets for so long and I just had to tell someone.

My parents were suspicious from the start. At least, I thought they were. Mother noticed a change in my behavior the next morning. I think I fell asleep in my breakfast. I told her that I didn’t sleep well because I had nightmares, which was partially true (I just didn’t tell her what the nightmares were about). She didn’t ask. She just held my tightly in her arms and assured me that they were just dreams and that I was perfectly safe within the castle (I didn’t mention that it was what was within the castle that frightened me).

Father was preoccupied with uprisings in the neighboring kingdoms, so it took him a little longer to notice, a few days at most. We were walking through a long corridor, and whenever we entered a particularly dark section, I would cling to him for protection. I had never been afraid of the dark before, so he thought that the uprisings and violence was frightening his young child. He, like mother, assured me that I was safe, but he didn’t make me let go of him. I think he liked that I saw him as my protector. Any hero would gladly give his life to protect his princess, especially if she was his own daughter.

The glittery man continued to visit me. He would tell me stories about another young princess he knew named Regina. When he talked about her, he had this loving look in his eyes that made me think that she was his princess. I wondered if he had been a king once, if she had clung to him the way I did to my father, if he had died to protect her and was now a ghost or some variation of a dead soul.

He only told me the story in bits and pieces, and rarely in the right order, but more on that later.


	5. Prince Phillip

My father, as you know, is a king. He was a prince who married a princess and together they grew into a king and a queen. The enchanted forest really has many small kingdoms and I think the whole king/queen title might be a bit overused. Given the amount of power each monarch has, they are really more like lords and ladies than kings and queens, but whatever.

Anyway, so my dad had other former-prince-now-king friends who ruled over neighboring kingdoms and every so often they would get together and discuss things. It was kind of a diplomatic ‘our kingdom will trade good X for good Y with your kingdom,’ but also kind of a friendly ‘we have a lot in common, let’s discuss our lives with each other.’ I rarely left the castle, so most of my social life came from these gatherings. King Phillip and Queen Aurora had a son called Phillip who was around my age, and we loved to play together while the adults did their grown-up things.

Some of the reasons that I liked Phillip included:

  1. A) He was a kid therefore an infinitely better playmate than an adult servant pretending to be a kid
  2. B) He was a boy and didn’t have to worry about being ladylike all the time. He could wear pants and hit things with a sword. Of course, as a prince, he still wasn’t allowed to spit in public like I had seen the peasant children do, but that didn’t stop our secret spitting contests.
  3. C) He was a prince, so we could get married one day. That was something that my parents talked about often whenever I showed any interest in Phillip. I didn’t really like him like that, but I also wouldn’t have minded marrying him someday, because he was my friend. Besides, I was too young to really like anybody like that and I figured that if I had to marry a prince, Phillip was the best one around. I figured he felt the same way about me.



So now that you know about Phillip, I can continue with my story. A little while after I had gone into the forbidden room, I saw Phillip again. I wanted to tell him about my adventures, but I needed to get him alone, away from all the adults first.

I took him to the courtyard, which had a garden. I stomped on the leaves so that they would make a crunch noise.

Phillip laughed. “Alex does that too.”

“Alex?” I asked.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Alex is my new friend, another royal kid. Apparently there’s more than just me and you.”

“That’s cool. Maybe we can all play sometime.”

“Apparently Alex’s dad kind of disappeared a long time ago, and that might be why they aren’t invited to these things. My parents are trying to get that changed.”

I never got the chance to talk to him about my adventures, because he just wanted to talk about Alex.


	6. Chapter 6:A Princess Who Loved Horses

I loved the glittery man’s stories. He weaved tales about a miller’s daughter who became a queen and how she turned straw to gold. But my favorite stories were about her daughter, a princess who loved riding horses.  
She was beautiful and kind and all the things a princess should be. She was dignified and could act grown-up, though she loved sneaking away from everything so that she could ride her horse Rocinante and be free. On her horse, she was no longer a princess, but just a girl. It was as if the world had been made for her. Every tree and bush carefully crafted to be her obstacle course, every cloud and sunset painted just for her to look at. That was the girl I always wanted to be.

“I don’t know why people are so scared of you,” I told her. “You don’t look like you can hurt anyone. And even if you could move,” I tapped on the glass, “it’s not like you could get out of there.”  
My finger came away from the surface covered in dust. “You’re a queen,” I remarked. “You shouldn’t have to be covered in dust.” I blew on the surface to get rid of the other dust. I blew and I blew all around the glass coffin until I was on the floor panting for breath.  
“There,” I panted. “All, huh, better.”

“Yes,” the glittery man said, walking closer to the coffin and tracing over the glass with two of his grubby finger nails. “Now we can see the beauty that attracted all of those suitors.”  
“Suitors?” I asked.  
“Yes, Dearie. You see, after our dear queen here was placed under a sleeping curse, the suitors started coming. Not only was she a sleeping beauty, but she was also a queen. For many of them, this was enough to override the warnings of her former atrocities. Of course, not a single kiss from any of them had any effect, and in a way that only encouraged them. It was a challenge, a new sword in the stone. Except then one of the suitors was trampled by a horse. No one thought much of it at the time. But then,” he leaned his face closer to me, as if he were telling a ghost story, “another drowned while trying to catch a fish. Yet another, mistaken for an animal, was shot with a hunter’s arrow. Then there were all the mysterious illnesses. One by one, all the suitors that had kissed the queen began to die. Not one lived a year past kissing her. As time went on, the suitors stopped coming. It was accepted that the queen was evil and had no true love. Her heart was too full of darkness to be capable of love.”

I know I probably should have been frightened of the queen. But I had grown to care for her, as strange as that may sound. A little girl caring for a queen who was not dead, but merely in a death-like sleep.  
I remember thinking about how sad it must be to be alone like that, with no one to love you. Not even a father or mother. I would rather sleep a long time than have to wake up to a world that didn’t love me.


	7. Chapter 7: A Wilting Flower

Eventually, I got to meet the Alex that Phillip talked so much about. It was at a ball hosted by Phillip’s family. I had assumed that when Phillip invited me, we were to be attending the ball together, as we had in years past before it meant anything. We would get all dressed up, and the adults would have us dance together. We would later talk about how much we hated dances like this and were only there because our parents made us, but secretly we enjoyed it.

This dance was different, however. We were growing up. Phillip was growing taller and I had already developed more womanly features. I was looking forward to dancing with Phillip not only to joke and tease him about it afterwards, but also because I wanted to hold him close, to touch his hand. It was girly and silly, but it was how I felt.

That was not how that night went. Instead, I met Alex. She was beautiful. Phillip could barely take his eyes off her. He danced with her all night, leaving me to stand alone.

Where was the boy who loved me? Where was my beauty? Had I already outgrown my childish good looks, like a wilting flower that Phillip no longer wanted.

Was I like the queen, alone with no one to love me? Was the worth of a woman akin to that of a flower? Beautiful for a short while, but temporary.

I pondered these thoughts as I sat next to the glass coffin, which I regularly cleaned so that I could look at the queen. I loved looking at her beautiful sleeping face. If women were flowers, she would have been a flower that had been picked and pressed so as to preserve it and protect the wonderful colors from wilting away into dust.


	8. Chapter 8: A Fairytale Ending

As time went on, the glittery imp Rumpelstiltskin told me more and more stories about the queen. I have pieced together many of them to form what I believe to be the completed story:

Once upon a time, there was an evil queen who repeatedly tried to kill Snow White and everyone that stood in her way. But in the end, good always wins. Snow White got her happy ending, a charming husband and their wonderful daughter. And as for the evil queen…  
Well, she disappeared.   
Some say that she was forced to dance in ret hot iron shoes until she died or that she was pushed down a bottomless pit. Others insist that she died from pure anger at seeing Snow White’s happy ending. There are other theories, but we don’t have to go into them right now.  
The point is that they’re all wrong. She’s not dead. Don’t worry; she can’t hurt anyone. She’s not hiding in the woods somewhere plotting an evil curse or anything like that. In fact, she’s in this very castle, sleeping in a glass coffin, and she has been for years.  
You see, when they captured the evil queen they were going to kill her. I mean, what better way to keep her from hurting anyone?  
Prince Charming wanted to execute her, because he saw her as an evil witch set on destroying his family. But Snow White saw her as a heartbroken soul and took pity on her. No more blood would be spilt in this feud.

Maybe it was because Snow had known her for so long, or maybe it was just Snow’s habit of seeing the good in people, no matter how evil. Whatever the reason, Snow White wouldn’t let them kill her. Instead she suggested the sleeping curse as a kinder punishment.   
First of all, the evil queen always had an obsession with beauty, and the irony of this curse was that it would allow her to retain her youthful looks even in a death-like state.  
Second, the curse, like any curse, could be broken by true love’s kiss. Snow White possessed hope that one day the evil queen just might find a true love to wake her up, that one day she too could have happiness. Snow searched far and wide for the evil queen’s true love, just as Prince Thomas searched for his Princess Cinderella. Countless men came to the castle to place their lips on the sleeping queen.  
But none of her suitors could break the curse.  
After her suitors began to die of mysterious causes, distressed relatives protested against the search for the evil queen’s true love. Eventually, the arrivals of suitors, once a common occurrence, ceased altogether.  
Many still feared the queen’s wrath, convinced that she was responsible for the deaths would use her magic to somehow break the sleeping curse.  
And when Snow White’s daughter was born, even she became worried. Every magical item even remotely dangerous was locked away, including the evil queen’s glass coffin.  
Rumpelstiltskin, however, wanted the queen’s curse to be broken, and he knew how to do it. But it would take time. He gave the key that would open the locked room to the queen’s true love. He showed her the glass coffin and told her stories about a princess who loved horses.  
Snow White’s daughter grew up and fell in love with the sleeping queen.  
Throughout her childhood, no matter what she tried, the princess was unable to open the glass coffin. It was not until she was fully grown that she understood the full extent of her feelings for the queen and was able to use a magic that she did not even know she possessed to make the glass coffin disappear altogether. Finally, with no barrier between her and her queen, Snow White’s daughter placed a small kiss on the queen’s lips, waking the queen once and for all.


End file.
